The Bookshop Band are three British musician/songwriters, Ben Please, Poppy Pitt and Beth Porter who struck up a friendship whilst playing with at UK music festivals and decided to collaborate when their local bookshop proposed the idea in late 2010.
The band began as a collaboration with Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, in Bath (Independent Bookshop of the Year 2008 / 2011) as part of a plan to help Mr B’s rejuvenate its traditional ‘author evenings’. The plan was that the band would read the forthcoming author’s book in advance and write two songs based upon it, to be performed at the start of the evening. Their performances are inextricably linked to the books
themselves, and the members of the band would take it in turns to describe where the inspiration for each song came from.
Each of the band members comes from a very different background, but all have top quality musical credentials – Beth has played with many artists, including Newton Faulkner, Peter Gabriel, The Unthanks and The Heavy, and currently tours with Eliza Carthy. She has also recorded for many more, including The Proclaimers, Petula Clark and Maximo Park. Ben works as an environmental film maker in East Africa and is part of indie-folk band Urusen, who have recently recorded an album at Peter Gabriel’s Realworld Studio with platinum-selling producer Steve Osborne (KT Tunstall, The Happy Mondays, U2, Doves). Poppy Pitt is an artist and sculptor, and tours with her own band, Poppy and Friends. The Bookshop Band also produce music for films, most recently with Ben writing, and Beth involved in recording, the orchestral score for a short animation called The Eagleman Stag, which won the 2011 BAFTA for Best Short Animation (2010).
And now The Bookshop Band are bringing their uniquely-inspired and accomplished songs to bookshops throughout Ireland.
Since their first event in September 2010, the band has written over 70 songs inspired by 39 books from Andrew Miller’s “Pure” (2011 Costa Novel of the Year) to China Mieville’s acclaimed science-fiction novel “Embassytown” . They have recorded extensively, releasing four albums in their first year. For their Irish tour they will also feature songs inspired by two contemporary Irish authors, Kevin Maher and his debut novel The Fields, and Roisin Meaney’s new book, Something in Common.
Their Irish tour this April and May visits Dublin (Royal Irish Academy of Music & The Gutter Bookshop) north Tipperary, Wicklow, Kilkenny, Cork, Kerry and Waterford between the 25th April and the 3rd May, playing mainly in independent bookshops.
Roisin Meaney told writing.ie “It’s a sort-of launch for Something in Common, but it’s a bit different to the normal ones in that it takes place in the Royal Irish Academy of Music on Westland Row, and as well as me, it involves a group of students from Trinity College and a three piece band from the UK called The Bookshop Band whose raison d’etre is to read books and then write songs inspired by the books – how cool is that?”
The Bookshop Band has received significant radio coverage in the UK. Their first CD, Travels From Your Armchair, was available only from their local bookshop, but word soon spread and they were picked up by UK radio DJ Tom Robinson, who played them on his national show on BBC 6Music. More recently the band had a 10 minute feature on Kirsty Lang’s culture show, BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, and the band appeared on BBC 1 as part of a news feature on Britain’s independent bookshops.
Listen to The Bookshop Band here: http://thebookshopband.bandcamp.com/
For more information about The Bookshop Band Irish tour, see below or visit www.thebookshopband.co.uk
